What I Think

I'll make this short for now because I'm sure I'll develop new opinions as I actually start working with the M80 in real world situations and get some time in trying other mics with the M80 and compare how the different transformers react.

The First Listen

The initial listening was done using a Yamaha 01V mixing board and KRK V8 monitors and listening to the 24 / 48 original samples. Paulo listened to the samples he played on and I've indicated his preferences along with my own

Acoustic Guitar :

Paulo and I were in total agreement. We both liked the Jensen channel better on acoustic guitar. Paulo commented that the Jensen channel sounded like what the guitar sounded like. The generic channel was a little brighter but lacked richness in the body of the tone.

Electric Guitar :

Paulo and I were in total agreement again. We both liked the generic channel better on electric guitar. The generic channel was more pleasing to listen to and sounded fuller. Paulo commented that the generic channel seemed to be scooping out the sound in a couple places which is exactly what the sound we were getting from the amps needed. The KRK's ARE fairly bright and unforgiving but the Jensen channel seemed too harsh and brittle.

Electric Bass :

We we both undecided and couldn't discern any difference between the two channels.

Vocals :

Here we disagreed. Paulo liked the generic side better and I was fairly undecided with a slight lean towards the Jensen side. Paulo seemed to like the brighter and more cutting sound of his voice through the generic transformer and while I kind of liked that also I thought that the Jensen side was closer to what Paulo sounded like naturally.

HiHat :

I liked the Jensen better overall. The generic side was noticeably brighter and I liked that but it unfortunately brought out an annoying high pitched resonance that my hihats possess and I wouldn't want that on a recording. The Jensen side was more natural sounding.

Snare Drum:

In both the distance and close mic'ing I liked the Jensen side better. The Jensen side seemed to reproduce a richer fuller tone. The generic side seemed to have just as good of a punch and 'snare' sound but the tone / pitch of the head seemed to disappear. ( I suppose if you had a snare that had a bad tone or a pitch that clashed with a particular tune this could be a useful thing sometimes. . . )

Bass Drum:

This was a close call but I think the generic had just a slightly bigger low end punch.

Roto Tom :

Initial I couldn't decide this one. Then by turning up the volume quite a bit I noticed that the very low frequency sound of the stand vibrating as the tom was struck was coming through clearly on the generic channel and was barely audible on the Jensen channel. Now, capturing the sound of my stands vibrating isn't something that I normally want to do but I was impressed with the low frequency capturing capabilities of the generic. It might be more efficient at capturing things like concert bass drums and like . . . whales with indigestion . . .. or something . . . So the generic gets the vote here.

Various percussion :

At the moment I can't recall what I thought about the different transformers in this category. I think it must have been very close but I'll have to listen again.

The Second Listen

This was done as I worked on this web site. I only listened to the MP3 samples through $5 Altec computer speakers.

Everything :

Well, pretty much everything except the electric guitar through the Electar Tube 10 sounded better on the Jensen channel. I don't really trust this test much, partially because some of the subtleties are not present in the MP3 files and partially because I don't trust these speakers or the computer's sound card that much. Unfortunately I don't have an easy way to reverse the sides or to switch to mono-monitoring on the computer so I couldn't verify if one side sounded different or not. With that in mind the Jensen side sounded more focused and had better tone than the generic side.

That's it for now!

And once again, please keep in mind that these tests are in no way scientific or controlled and that any opinions you develop from the materials here ( especially when reading my opinions ) are VERY subjective and the margin for error is fairly wide. Use this site as a reference or starting point but it will be best if you do your own comparisons with equipment in your own studio.

I sincerely hope that you will find this site interesting, if not useful, and I'm open to any comments or suggestions you might be willing to share.

Best of luck!

John L Rice